Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar and the film ‘The Sandlot’

The Sandlot (1993) was a warm, family friendly movie of a somewhat rowdy collection of 12-year-old boys who liked to play baseball. The film is set in the summer of 1962, as a young Scotty Smalls comes into town as the school year is ending, summer is starting, and Scotty’s mom and step father are newly married. The film, and the adventures, take off from there.

(Pictured from left to right are Tom Guiry as Scotty Smalls, Karen Allen as Scotty’s Mom, Denis Leary as Bill, Scotty´s Stepfather, and Tom Guiry (again) as Scotty Smalls in The Sandlot).

Tom Guiry plays Scotty Smalls in The Sandlot. We first meet him as his mother and his stepfather, Bill, are moving the family to the neighborhood. Karen Allen plays Scotty’s mother, encouraging her son to make friends. Denis Leary plays Scotty’s stepfather, a distant man to Scotty who shares an interest in baseball yet a reluctance to connect with Smalls.

(Pictured from left to right are Patrick Renna as Hamilton ‘Ham’ Porter, Shane Obedzinski as Tommy ‘Repeat’ Timmons, Victor DiMattia as Timmy Timmons, Mike Vitar as Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, Tom Guiry as Scotty Smalls, Chauncey Leopardi as Michael ‘Squints’ Palledorous, Marty York as Alan ‘Yeah-Yeah’ McClennan, Grant Gelt as Bertram Grover Weeks, and Brandon Quintin Adams as Kenny DeNunez in The Sandlot).

Knowing not how to catch, throw, hit, or anything about the history of baseball, Scotty aims to join the local collection of eight boys playing baseball on a sandlot next to a property with a dog that scares all the boys. The group is reluctant to allow Scotty to join the group until the best player in the bunch, Benjamin Franklin Rodriquez as played by Mike Vitar, offers some friendship. It is through some early adventures where Hamilton ‘Ham’ Porter, as played by Patrick Renna, shares perhaps the most iconic line of the movie: “You’re killing me, Smalls.”

(Marley Shelton as Wendy Peffercorn in The Sandlot).

Michael ‘Squints’ Palledorous, as played by Chauncey Leopardi, introduces an adventure that gains him the respect of his twelve-year-old sandlot friends. Squints first sees Wendy Peffercorn, as played by Marley Shelton, on the sidewalk outside Vincent Drug Store. The attraction for Squints was instantaneous, leading to an unseemly yet age appropriate endeavor to gain the attention of Wendy at the swimming pool.

(Art LaFleur as Babe Ruth and Mike Vitar as Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez in The Sandlot).

The adventures and day-to-day gatherings the crew often circled around playing ball on the crews sandlot. Losing the one baseball to the neighbor yard, with the scary dog, was a recurring subject for the boys. One day, after losing their ball when Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez literally hit the cover off the ball, Scotty Smalls volunteered the use of his stepfather’s prized baseball, as signed by Babe Ruth. Having hit that ball into the yard with the dog, the kids needed to retrieve the ball. Rodriguez dreamed of a visit from Babe Ruth, as played by Art LeFleur, which led to the biggest adventure of the movie.

(James Earl Jones as Mr. Mertle in The Sandlot).

Meeting Mr. Mertle, as played by James Earl Jones, was a key outcome for resolving the adventure involved with the signed Babe Ruth baseball. An outgoing biography of the players from the sandlot proved a sweet way to bring some sense of what happened with the players of the movie. That Rodriguez and Smalls stayed particularly close was a nice touch for a group of boys enjoying childhood for a period before more adult perspectives began to appear. As the film brings me back to a similar period in my own life, I view The Sandlot fondly. My rating for The Sandlot is 4-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, April 4, 2020

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and the movie ‘Looper’

The Rian Johnson written and directed movie Looper (2012) represents the film that rose the director’s acclaim and profile in Hollywood profile significantly in the American movie making industry. The Turner Classic Movie profile of Johnson largely describes the film as “a mind-bending sci-fi action thriller,” which in a slightly involved plot stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis as the same character.

(Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Joe, top, and Bruce Willis as Old Joe in the movie Looper).

Looper sets out with the beginning of the film to introduce the audience to corporate assassin Joe in the year 2047, as portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Joe serves as the central protagonist and narrator for the film, as much of the background is not easily revealed without the sharing of this backstory. We as the audience learn that time travel is invented sometime after the “present day 2047,” and that it immediately is made illegal and used as a black market means of committing murder in the future and disposing of the evidence in the past. We learn that Joe, our narrator, is a looper who performs the illicit deeds involved of murder and disposal. Upon occasion, a looper must close a loop, which means kill and dispose of his or her elder counterpart. Bruce Willis plays Old Joe from 30 years in the future.

(Jeff Daniels as Abe, top, and Paul Dano as Seth in the movie Looper).

Jeff Daniels as Abe lives in the same era as Joe, as portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Abe was born in the future and sent back to the present era portrayed in the movie to serve as the head of the organization running the looper enterprise. Abe aims to select and manage the loopers, which includes having cultivated Joe. Fellow looper Seth, as portrayed by Paul Dano, comes to Joe for aid when he could close his loop and allowed him to escape. In showing us the demise of Seth and the interplay between the current day and the effect it has on Old Seth, Looper writer and director Rian Johnson foreshadows what could happen if and when Joe’s loop is called.

(Emily Blunt as Sara, top, and Pierce Gagnon as Cid in the movie Looper).

Looper as a movie gets little into how history may have changed due to present day 2047 injuries to Seth, yet the story quickly moves into the story for how Joe interacts with Old Joe and the farming family of Sara and Cid, both possessing a telekinetic ability that we learned of from the narration of Joe earlier in the movie. Emily Blunt plays Sara and Pierce Gagnon plays Cid. The narrative of these two are relevant and satisfying to me as a reviewer, though I choose to leave their role a mystery for those choosing to view the film.

(Qing Xu as Old Joe’s wife, top, and Piper Perabo as Suzie in the movie Looper).

The narrative of Old Joe’s wife and Joe’s female interest Suzie, are relevant yet less satisfying to me as a reviewer. These two offer something of a different nature than do Sara and Cid, yet I am less satisfied with the way the larger arc of their stories are resolved. I too choose to leave their role a mystery for those choosing to view the movie, though share these two for those who might need an R-rating to be attracted to Looper as a movie.

(Rian Johnson wrote and directed the movie Looper).

The movie does offer an emotional punch of an ending that leaves you feeling sympathy for the moral stake taken by characters operating from a large sense of moral depravity largely through the movie. Part of what makes the central characters sympathetic is that we see people making their best with a difficult and degrading situation and metaphorically playing the hand of cards they were dealt. In any meaningful context where you think about things deeply, this dodges a larger and relevant point about decency. Since Looper is a movie designed for entertaining adults for a period of time, my view of the film is taken at the level of conceit through which the movie views itself. Therefore, my rating is 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.

Matt – Saturday, June 8, 2019